RE: [ydn-delicious] changes to the 'save bookmark' dialog

[Larson, Timothy E.]

On Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:19 PM, Scott <> scribbled:
> Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
>> And what happened to the del.icio.us domain?
> 
> Uhhh...
> 
> Nothing. http://del.icio.us <http://del.icio.us>

It sends me to delicious.com.  :P  The domain hack was part of the
popularity of Del, IMHO.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] changes to the 'save bookmark' dialog

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Matt <> wrote:
> I see the new site is out - congratulations!

Gah!  I hate it!  Where's the list of tags to click?  And what happened to
the del.icio.us domain?

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Favicons.

[Larson, Timothy E.]

If the Del bookmark saved the favicon URL and fetched the original, that may
be a privacy concern.  But if Del instead cached favicons and served these
instead, I think the privacy concerns are eliminated.


Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Couple of questions

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Nathalie Vaiser <> wrote:
> But, I think the search itself should be improved to perhaps give an
> option of the default 'exact match' with a partial match option. As in
> my example, if I tagged something as pleural and didn't remember I did
> that (ie - Robots) and then I search for 'Robot' with no 's' at the
> end, I would like an easy way to find this tag (partial match)

A "fuzzy match" algorithm like this would be very cool.  But only if it were
optional, and/or results sorted so that higher confidence results came
first.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Tags with multiple words?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

bruins1961 <> wrote:
> I found a thread on this back in Sep/Oct 2007 but nothing newer. Is
> there going to be a way to incorporate multiword tags using a space
> delimiter? For example, I want some of my tags to be "incident
> response", "computer forensics", "data recovery". I guess I just am
> too stubborn to switch to say incident_response, incident-response, or
> incidentresponse. I'm so used to searching, thru database or the
> Internet, using the normal boolean operators and styles... "incident
> response" AND ""data recovery" as opposed to guessing how someone
> might have formatted their tag terms - like above (incident_response, 
> etc.) Thanx!!

Go ahead and tag them that way.  Then search for
"incident+response+data+recovery".  Boolean AND is the only operator Del
understands, so this usage fits perfectly.

I know that it seems tempting to think of an "incident response" as a
separate "thing" from whatever else you might tag, but Del's tagging
model allows for flexibility.  This way, if you want to search for
anything relating to an "incident" or a "response" you will find your
incident responses too.  If you want only incident responses (as opposed
to other kinds of responses, or other incident-related stuff), that's
what "incident+response" does.  

I've never seen the need for a "single multi-word tag" when additional
tags refine my search to get exactly what I want.

Tim
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Tim LarsonAMT2 Unix Systems Administrator
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Using del.icio.us for loosely coupled teams

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Tim Regn <> wrote:
> Thanks Tim. Do the pages tagged for:SomeoneElse show up in
> SomeoneElse's tag cloud automagically; or do they have to log in to
> approve them?  

What Britta said.  :)  That's a better explanation than mine.

Tim
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Tim LarsonAMT2 Unix Systems Administrator
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Using del.icio.us for loosely coupled teams

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Tim Regan <> wrote:
> in how a group might use del.icio.us? I think one straightforward way
> would be for the team to choose a tag and each member use that tag
> when posting links that would be of interest to the whole team. But
> this is open to pollution if other del.icio.us members start using the
> same tag for other reasons of their own. 
> Have people tried using del.icio.us for such team based scenarios? Is
> there a built in feature for this? What are your experiences? 

Register a user, say MyAcademicGroup, and have everyone use
for:MyAcademicGroup as a tag.  People outside the group would have
little reason to tag things to this user's attention, so it should
remain relatively spam-free.  I haven't used for: tags extensively, but
this seems a natural application for them.



Tim
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Tim LarsonAMT2 Unix Systems Administrator
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Tagging and bunddles

[Larson, Timothy E.]

stephenbungert <> wrote:
> Not many people seem to bundle tags. I try and keep every tag in a
> bundle. 
[...]
> How do you try and organise your bookmarks? Do you use bundles? Or do
> you just tag like crazy and then hope you remember what tags you used,
> or hope that delicious search will find them for you?  

I use bundles, but only to organize my tags on my Del home page.  (It
would be GREAT if they were similarly grouped on the posting page, hint
hint.)  I don't use on them for searching; they're not geared for that.
For applications such as yours, I just use a series of general to
specific tags.  

For example, I have a JS resource as "resource technology computers web
programming javascript".  If I was heavy into JS as you seem to be, I
might add "events" or "ui" or whatever to be even more specific.  When
it comes to disambiguating event-driven programming from social events,
that's what tag intersections do - "event" may be ambiguous by itself,
but "programming+event" is different than "holiday+event".  You may see
this as inconvenient, but it's only one extra click.

My style of bundling (_kinds_ of tags, rather than _topics_ of tags)
sidesteps some of the problems you're experiencing.  I guess I just use
Del in a different way??  It works for me.  The one thing I'd say is
that Del could be friendlier to this style of tagging by making bundles
more visible (e.g. the posting page mentioned earlier).  Almost every
link I save will have a tag from most of my bundles, so it would be so
much easier if I could scan a bundle at a time.

Feel free to check out del.icio.us/ChristTrekker to see. 

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] case-sensitivity in tags: Firefox extension vs. web interface

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Andrew Black <> wrote:
> ace_noone wrote:
>> I understand (and agree) that case should not make a difference when
>> browsing tags - but it can make visualizing the list of tags much
>> easier. 
> 
> Funnily enough, I was discussing a similar issue with Flickr this
> evening. I find it useful to enter long tags in Camel Case (in
> Delicious and in other similar places like flickr) and it would be
> nice if delicious were to allow me to use the tag in
> TheSameCaseAsIEnteredIt.

When I use del, tag suggestions ARE TheSameCaseAsIEnteredIt.  If you're
using an extension or a third-party interface, I dunno about that.
Maybe this is not exposed in the API.  But I just click my "post to
del.icio.us" button and it works great.


Tim


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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Network Privacy

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Tim Schoon <> wrote:
> It'd be a nice start. I don't mind my bookmarks being publicly
> accessible, lest I wouldn't have a del.icio.us account, but things
> like my fans/network I want to keep private amongst myself and those I
> wish to add to it (or whom I approve). Because I don't know who this
> other person is, or how they know me or why they would even add me in
> the first place, it really creeps me out.

Personally, I think it's a little _less_ "creepy" that someone has
visibly "subscribed" to the "Tim Schoon channel".  At least you know
that Person X out there is reviewing your links.  Isn't it more "creepy"
to think that hordes of _completely anonymous_ people are looking at
what you've bookmarked?  But you don't mind that.

> I guess it isn't so much that this person can see the bookmarks as it
> is that any stranger can come along and add me, without my permission,
> and I have no way of knowing who it is. I mean if they can access my
> public boomarks anyway, there would be no reason to be a fan of mine
> or even a part of my network. Surely there has to be a way to control
> who can be a fan/network member, or such a thing can be considered for
> addition.  

I imagine it's merely a convenience.  He/she can go directly to "my
network" instead of looking you up manually.

No disrespect intended, but this sounds a bit like paranoia.  If you
don't like the social aspects of a social bookmarking site, then you
shouldn't be using it.

Most people would consider having fans a good thing.  Can you control
who is a fan of yours in real life?  

> I'd really rather not know that some stranger is a fan of my
bookmarks.

Ignorance is bliss???  Seriously...you're revealing a ton about yourself
(through bookmarking habits) on a public site, you post half a dozen
forms of contact in an email in a public forum, and you're worried about
being seen by fans?  Putting your head in the sand won't change any of
that.


Tim
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Tim LarsonAMT2 Unix Systems Administrator
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RE: [ydn-delicious] "your bookmarks" vs "your favorites"

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Nancy McGough <> wrote:
> I just looked at all my browsers
> (Camino, OmniWeb, SeaMonkey, Safari, Shiira, Sunrise, 
> Opera) and they all use the word "Bookmark." I wonder if the word
> "Favorite" is an MS-Windows thing? Very interesting. 

If you go wy back in time, back to the First Browser War, back to
1996 (ancient I know!), you'd find that Netscape called these things
"bookmarks" and IE called them "favorites".  That's all there is to it.

Personally I prefer "bookmark".  It's not a book, but it connotes merely
"something I need to get back to" whereas a "favorite" OTOH implies I
like it.

Tim
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[ydn-delicious] for: tag listing

[Larson, Timothy E.]

I pulled up my only for:user tag, and though it said "listing all 5
items" there was only 1.


Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Relaunch?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Jerry Krinock wrote:
> I understand. My favorite case is "Fruits.Apple" vs.
> "Computers.Apple". Sometimes you need a hierarchical structure.
> 
> At least Apple Computer was thoughtful enough to mis-spell their
> "Macintosh" to avoid crosstalk with the "McIntosh" apple fruits :)) 

Doesn't everyone tag "hierarchically"?  

Everything I tag with "macintosh" also goes in "computers", as do many
things tagged "windows" (not the URLs about glass, of course).  

Everything that is tagged "computers" is also tagged with "technology",
which also encompasses my interest in radio, etc.

Everything that is tagged "uk" or "germany" is also tagged "europe".

It's all about establishing context with your tags.  A tag, completely
in isolation, may have many different meanings.  Putting it in the
context of another tag helps define it.

I don't really use bundles to establish this hierarchy, as the previous
poster was trying to do.  I use tags.  Bundles help organize my tags:
uk, germany, and europe are in my "places" bundle.  It would be rather
meaningless for me to want to look at everything in the places bundle,
because everything happens somewhere, so every news type posting I've
made would show up. 

Usually I have at least one tag from each bundle to define the posting -
the page is of some "type" like news, commentary, humor, reference; it
concerns some "topic" or "issue" and often more than one, as I establish
context and hierarchy; it is often in a specific "place"; and (if
notable) I may want to save the "author".

This requires diligence, and it's not always easy to remember what the
"parent" tag of any given tag is, since hierarchy (being contextual) is
an ad hoc concept.  It it were possible to do some analysis dynamically
during the tagging process in order to determine likely parent/child
tags based on tags already entered thus far, that would be a huge help.
I have no idea how feasible that is though.

Tim
-- 
Tim Larson
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Relaunch?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

selune13 wrote:
> Yes, I do use bundles, but for bundles, you can only put your tags
> under one bundle and no other. This makes it more complicated when,
> for instance, I have "adult" patterns and "adult" content sites. I
> can't put the tag "adult" under the "Patterns" bundle because I'll be
> lumping in adult content sites as well. :)

I have some tags that I leave unbundled.  Generally they act as
"modifiers" to other tags, but often in very different contexts, much
like the situation you describe.  I think you just need to rethink your
bundling strategy in light of this.

Tim
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Tim Larson
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Relaunch?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

selune13 wrote:
> I, for one, like folders in addition to tags. Unless you have perfect
> memory, it's difficult to remember a combination of tags that will get
> you the total collection of links you are looking for or to
> consistently tag items you want to group together EXACTLY the same
> every time. It's next to impossible. If you accidentally leave a tag
> out, you miss that link when you do a search. I cannot be perfectly
> consistent with tags every time, so it's nice to be able to group
> things in folders. 

I use the toolbar button for posting, so I have to visually scan the
alphabetic list to remind myself of tags I want to use, too.  (I
currently have 177 tags.  Not huge I suppose, but not a trivial number
either.)  I've stated several times that organizing this list by bundle
would be an ENORMOUS benefit.  I have not yet seen any response for why
this hasn't been done.  Tags can be organized by bundle on one's Del
"home" page; why not the posting page?


Thanks,
Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Relaunch?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

nick.nguyen wrote:
> We've beefed up the bundle feature so soon you can view all bookmarks
> in a specific bundle. This may satisfy your folder cravings without
> actually having folders. Example- create a bundle called 'pets' with
> the 'dog', 'cat', and 'fish' tag, and you can now view only bookmarks
> with those tags by clicking the bundle name. This list will also be
> searchable in context regardless of whether you're looking at your own
> bundle or someone else's. Pretty slick.  

Kind of like a tag union instead of intersection???

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Relaunch?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
> It's a huge overhaul on the backend (this time architected by people
> who aren't me, which is probably good) plus a frontend redesign (some
> new styling, plus the opportunity to get rid of the impacted css and
> javascript crud.)   

Infrastructure updates are never glamorous, but the effort usually pays
off in the long run.

> Not a lot of new stuff in there, although we are adding some things
> that are VERY frequently asked for (bulk-ish editing, alphabetical
> sort, that kind of stuff ... and the blue on pink bit will go). We
> should be able to go to a MUCH faster release schedule after the new
> lauch so a lot of the stuff I've been saying "we're working on that"
> to for the last year will be able finally get done. 

/me does a little dance of joy!

Scratch that...  BIG dance of joy!



Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Sorted RSS

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Alexander Skwar wrote:
> L Ellis schrieb:
> 
>> Is there a website/RSS service that will consume the del.icio.us feed
>> and then give you a new URL for the sorted feed?
> 
> This sounds like a good task for Yahoo! Pipes ->
> http://pipes.yahoo.com/.  

Neat idea.  That would certainly mitigate (but not eliminate) the need
for Del to add decent sorting capabilities of its own.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Suggestion: Regular Expressions for Tags

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Sergio Nunes wrote:
> While navigating through my bookmarks, I found myself thinking that
> some form of regular expressions for tag selection would greatly
> improve my filtering. For example, I use "qualifiers" in several tags
> (e.g.: date:2007, date:200701, recipe:fish, ...) It would be great to
> be able to use regular expressions with these tags (e.g. date:>2006 or
> recipe:*). 

How about just splitting those into multiple tags?  Search for
"recipe+fish" for recipes involving fish, and just "recipe" to get all
the recipes.

I once wanted Del to have different "types" or "namespaces" of tags as
well, but the generalized solution often works just as well.  It may
leave the exact nature of a tag ambiguous but it's also flexible, which
is a strength.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] AccessKey for "earlier" links screws up editing in Safari

[Larson, Timothy E.]

John Remmers wrote:
> On Jun 18, 2007, at 11:29 AM, Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
>> This is really a matter for Safari to work out. The accesskey
modifier
>> used by the browser should not be something that is used elsewhere in
>> the system. The collision here is completely Safari's fault. If Cocoa
>> uses Ctrl+letter already, then browsers should use Ctrl+Opt+letter,
or
>> Ctrl+Shift+letter, or whatever. The web page should be able to use
any
>> letter for an accesskey, trusting the browser not to cause confusion.
> 
> Right. But the latest Camino and Firefox for OS X also set the
> accesskey modifier to Ctrl and therefore have the same conflict as
> Safari. At least for Camino and Firefox, one can modify this in user
> preferences -- in "about:config", change the ui.key.contentAccess
> value from 2 to 6 to make Ctrl+Opt the accesskey modifier. The only
> solution for Safari that I've been able to find involves modifying the
> WebKit source and rebuilding Safari (see http://
> www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200703171853311).   

Personally, I was not aware of the emacs keybindings in Cocoa (I'd
hazard a guess that most people are not) so perhaps the conflict is very
limited in its scope of impact.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] AccessKey for "earlier" links screws up editing in Safari

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Andrew Wooster wrote:
> I just noticed that del.icio.us now has accesskeys set for the
> earlier/later links. earlier is now bound to ctrl+e, and later is now
> bound to ctrl+l.  

I see it's using rel=prev/next links as well.  Very nice.

> Sadly, this means that when editing text with Safari in any text box
> on a page with an "earlier" link, ctrl+e will take you to the earlier
> page. Ctrl+e, in the Cocoa text system on OS X, is bound similar to
> emacs, in that it takes you to the end of the paragraph (or line).
> See:
> http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/System%20Bindings.html
>  
> 
> I just wanted to chip in my two cents that I'd really prefer not to
> have this behavior on del.icio.us. 

This is really a matter for Safari to work out.  The accesskey modifier
used by the browser should not be something that is used elsewhere in
the system.  The collision here is completely Safari's fault.  If Cocoa
uses Ctrl+letter already, then browsers should use Ctrl+Opt+letter, or
Ctrl+Shift+letter, or whatever.  The web page should be able to use any
letter for an accesskey, trusting the browser not to cause confusion.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Link checker for del.icio.us?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> My main concern about tools like disastrous is that popular links,
> bookmarked by N persons, will be checked N times... 

Precisely why it would be very nice if Yahoo/Delicious did centralized
link checking...much less bandwidth being used overall.  Since Yahoo is
already crawling around, it couldn't be that much extra for them.

Tim
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[ydn-delicious] link legibility

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Would it be possible to change the style of class pop anchors (the
"saved by X other people" links) to use colored borders rather than
colored backgrounds?  The dark backgrounds make the text completely
illegible because there's not enough contrast.



Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Link checker for del.icio.us?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael Feher wrote:
> It's possible to have similar bookmarks (similar) addresses, prior to
> adding them via delicious. 
> ex. www.something.com and http://www.something.com
>   and http://something.com.
>   It happens.  

Ahhh, I get you now.  I guess I've run into that myself.  It would help
if all webmasters would set their servers to redirect to the canonical
form of the domain name.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Link checker for del.icio.us?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael Feher wrote:
> Bookmarked the same site more than once.
> 
> - Original Message 
> From: "Larson, Timothy E." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> I use the browser buttons for Delicious, and if I try to save a link I
> 
> already have, it is quite obvious. How do you get dupes?

What I'm trying to say is "how is that possible with Delicious?"  If I
try to bookmark the same link, it brings up the previously bookmarked
one for editing.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Link checker for del.icio.us?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Rocco Caputo wrote:
> On May 8, 2007, at 14:49, Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
>> There is a plugin for Firefox (LinkChecker, appropriately enough),
>> which works well if you can get all the bookmarks you want to check
on
>> one page. You have to manually fix the del.icio.us entry, but it's a
>> cross-platform solution, and not limited to working only with
>> bookmarking services.
> 
> All your bookmarks are on one page. There's a bookmarks.html file
> somewhere in your Firefox profile directory. Sounds like this has the
> potential to tie up your browser for a while. :)  

Delicious only displays 25/50/whatever bookmarks per page.  

I suppose it would take awhile (I assume it makes HEAD requests to all
the URLs it finds on the page) but any tool is going to take awhile.
Just open another browser tab/window/instance if you need to keep
surfing.

Using this plugin does have a drawback on Delicious pages, because it
checks all navigation links as well as the bookmarks, though it seems
smart enough to ignore things marked logout/delete/etc.


Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Link checker for del.icio.us?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael Feher wrote:
> How about including a duplicate-link finder feature to help weed out
> dupes? 

I use the browser buttons for Delicious, and if I try to save a link I
already have, it is quite obvious.  How do you get dupes?

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Link checker for del.icio.us?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Alexander Skwar wrote:
> Does somebody know of a "link check service" for del.icio.us?
> I'd like to have it check all of my bookmarks, and if the bookmark is
> not available anymore, it should either remove it directly from my
> collection, or, maybe even better, it should tag it with some tag
> (like "unavailable" or whatever). Or if the target is moved, it should
> get some other tag and maybe the new URL as a "note".
> 
> Does something like this exist?

There is a plugin for Firefox (LinkChecker, appropriately enough), which
works well if you can get all the bookmarks you want to check on one
page.  You have to manually fix the del.icio.us entry, but it's a
cross-platform solution, and not limited to working only with
bookmarking services.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Link Count for Domain

[Larson, Timothy E.]

shawncassidy11 wrote:
> Does anybody know if there is currently a way, or is there a plan to
> make a way to find out how many links to a specific domain there are
> in Del.icio.us? For example, if I wanted to see how many people were
> linking to a page on yahoo.com (or more specifically www.yahoo.com), I
> could just type in 'www.yahoo.com' into the search box and it would
> count the number of people that have linked to any page on
> www.yahoo.com. It's nice to be able to see the history on a specific
> link to see how many people have saved that link, but I want to know
> how many people are linking to me total.

I, too, have been wanting something like this.  It could be implemented
as a special system: or urldomain: keyword or similar, which could then
be searched just like you can for a tag now.  

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] exclude tag from search

[Larson, Timothy E.]

sonja_ausland wrote:
> do I miss something or is this really not possible at the moment:
> if I add the tags "vacation" and "2006" to many bookmarks and only
> "vacation" (without "2006") to 2 bookmarks - how to find these 2? 
> 
> What I wanted to do is: click on vacation and then *exclude* "2006"
> from related tags.
> Is this possible?

AFAIK, no.

Greater support for set operations (besides AND) have been requested
from time to time, but (to date) I don't think they've ever been
seriously considered.



Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: starting del 2.0 and more communication from me

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Hamish MacEwan wrote:
> Yes, please retain and redirect the old and remove the pain of having
> to use it. I loved del.icio.us but it is so pr.ecio.us to type. Well
> done on getting delicious.com  

I disagree.  Part of the uniqueness of del is the clever domain hack.
Simpy, Spurl, et al, are much the same without the distinctly cool name.
Retain del.icio.us as the canonical form, and redirect other variations
to it.

> The
> whole point, for me, of del.icio.us is to have access to my links from
> browsers I don't control

Ditto that.  The sharing/networking is a useful side benefit.


Tim
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Eschew obfuscation!

[ydn-delicious] feature req: alternative title

[Larson, Timothy E.]

I was looking around some of the other social bookmarking sites and
noticed that Simpy has the ability to store an alternative title.  This
allows the original title to be saved in its original form while still
providing the user the ability to have a custom title of their own.  I
think this is a great idea.  I'd even go one step further by suggesting
a unique twist, which is easiest to describe by illustration.

Here's an example of an accurate, but nondescript, page title.

Title:  Florida man killed
Custom: 
Display:Florida man killed

I'd like a more personally meaningful title.

Title:  Florida man killed
Custom: My uncle's neighbor died in a freak storm!
Display:My uncle's neighbor died in a freak storm!

That's relevant to me, but others viewing my bookmarks may not
appreciate the significance.  Here's a way to combine both.

Title:  Florida man killed
Custom: Tampa $TITLE by lightning next door to my uncle's house
Display:Tampa Florida man killed by lightning next
door to my uncle's house

I think this would be really cool.


Tim

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[ydn-delicious] format of del.icio.us/settings/tags/bundle

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Can the unused white space to the right be removed so that the tags have
more room?  I have lots of tags, and I can't see them all on one screen
without losing the form field off top.  Widening the space usable by the
tag list would help.

Thanks,
Tim

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[ydn-delicious] legibility - plz consider changing style

[Larson, Timothy E.]

On any of my bookmark pages, the bit that says "saved by X other people"
is shaded with red, darker the more people have also saved it.  This has
the effect of making the light blue text completely unreadable for
popular pages.  Can you please change this from a background color to a
border, or some other kind of effect?  I appreciate the effort at
putting a fuzzy indicator (color) along with a precise indicator
(number), but if I can't read it, then it might as well be a
color-coding only.


Thanks,
Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Request for hierarchical bookmarks

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Marcelo Wolfgang wrote:
> That's where the tagging system of del.icio.us comes in handy.
> You could tag the link as judaism and christianity and the link will
> be show under the two hierarchy, so you will always found it's place. 

Precisely!

> Think of the tags as folders, you can delimit them ( user choice here
> del.icio.us if you ever going to implement this ) as I do using a '.' 
> example
> 
> design.photoshop and design.technique so I will have a tree structure
> like this : 
> 
>> - design
>>> - photoshop
>>> - technique
> 
> and the same bookmark will be under both branches.

For those that want a hierarchal system, I think this is a good
solution.  Myself, I wouldn't use it, because it reintroduces all the
innate problems of hierarchy.  Let's say I have a link about Photoshop,
not related to design, but perhaps an article discussing UIs of various
programs.  I wouldn't want to put this in design.photoshop, but maybe a
software.photoshop instead.  Now I have to maintain two separate (and
long, especially if it extends beyond two levels) tags, whilst Del
allows for tag intersections (design+photoshop and software+photoshop)
already.  Hierarchy presumes that something in a child category
automatically belongs in the parent category, which is not always the
case.

Currently, any notion of hierarchy/supersets has to be carefully and
consistently maintained by users when adding tags because Del never
makes them explicit.  Often I find myself trying to find similar links
to see what I've done before, so I don't forget a useful tag.  How about
displaying the user's list of tags by bundles on the posting page, to
make visual scanning easier?  Tools to aid in "set management", such as
making selection of a tag automatically suggest "parent" (as defined by
the user) tags which could then be selected (or not), would also be very
beneficial. 

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Request for hierarchical bookmarks

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Hamish MacEwan wrote:
> Hierarchical structures of folders are a straitjacket, based on "a
> place for everything and everything in its place." In fact its more
> like "one and only one place for anything." But if you enjoy the
> results you can have them in del.icio.us by tagging with the folder
> names you wish in the hierarchy and accessing thus for example:

I have to agree completely.  Before I discovered Del, I'd been
brainstorming how to build my own online bookmark system, which was
going to be a hierarchal system.  As a student of religion, one
particular problem illustrated the deficiency of this system for me:
Jewish Christianity.  

With my system, would I put this under Judaism?  Christianity?  Devise
some clumsy way for it to be in both?  It certainly doesn't belong at a
higher level on par with either of those parents.  Using tags neatly
solves the problem.  

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Hiding Tags and Auto Bundles

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> I've been using the uri:asin:xxx tag assuming that sometime in the
> future it might enable some interesting auto-linking stuff. And even
> if it doesn't, I need some kind of convention for tags used when I
> pull feeds elsewhere. Similarly, I 'd like to use something like:   
> author:last,first etc...

I once thought I wanted an "author" field in Del.  But I've discovered
that plain old tags can do a lot of this...now I use the convention that
all-lowercase are "normal" tags and CamelCase for the author name
"field".  I don't know if this convention would particularly help you
personally, but I've seen other Del users doing this, too.

I'd still like to see true fields for pre- and post-title expansion
text, but we've been over that before.  :)

> But even with just using the "standard" uri tag, the display of such
> tags are starting to be irritating. It would be cool to be able to
> hide classes of tag from display. There's no reason to, by default at
> least, need to see all the uri:asin links in this page, for instance: 
> http://del.icio.us/fncll/ToRead 

For the type of "meta"-classification that you're describing, I can
definitely see your point.

> Also, it would nice to be able to have all tags with a certain name,
> prefix, or of a type added to a bundle. So all uri:asin:x tags would
> be automatically added to the zBookRefs bundle on my list...  

This sort of thing would be nice, but I'd prefer to see it done
completely ad hoc, without relying on particular prefixes or whatever.
For example, in general, I'd like all my "web" tags also tagged
"computer", and all "computer" tags to also be tagged "technology".


Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Request for hierarchical bookmarks

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael Feher wrote:
> Still on the topic of hierarchical organization...has there been any
> talk of adding something like a dot separator a la Java to tags to be
> able to sub-tag bookmarks? I think this would be a great feature and
> would not detract from the ability to see things as a cloud, etc. in
> delicious as it is done now.

I started using del precisely because my system for hierarchal
management did not work.  There are categories that are not neatly
situated under one and only one parent.  There's no easy way to resolve
this that didn't devolve into messiness at some level.  Then I
discovered the concept of tagging, and I was surprised that the idea of
organizing by set intersections rather than hierarchy had not yet
occurred to me.

I think it may be useful many times for specific tags to suggest more
general tags that they are a subset of, but this can never be enforced
as strictly as a hierarchy.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Seriously needed features.

[Larson, Timothy E.]

magnoliasoutherly wrote:
> If me, then I hate to say it, but no. These features I'm requesting
> are not available or do not work with other extensions. I use Firefox
> and because I'm using a Delicious Firefox extension that Delicious has
> made themselves, I'm requesting features for this extension. It is
> fluid and not unreasonable in the least. Why use more extensions to
> get features for the original extension? 
> 
> I agree Delicious needs to do what it does best, but it needs to be
> more user friendly and take into account why users use various
> browsers.  

It was not clear you were addressing the interface of the FF extension.
I don't use it, and think primarily of the web interface.  One shouldn't
try to emulate a particular browser's conventions when designing a web
interface, hence my objections.

Tim
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[ydn-delicious] RE: bundles when adding

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
> I recently started using bundles to organize my tags, and love it. 
> However, they'd be most useful when I'm on the screen adding a new
> link so I can find what I'm looking for more easily.  Why are they
> only displayed in one big blob on the edit page?  I've set up my
> bundles such that they represent kinds of attributes (e.g. authors),
> so for each link I'd likely want one or more from each. 

I hadn't seen any discussion of this, so I was wondering if it had
gotten out.

Thanks,
Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Smallish Feature Request

[Larson, Timothy E.]

magnoliasoutherly wrote:
> --- In ydn-delicious@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:ydn-delicious%40yahoogroups.com> , "Larson, Timothy E."
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
>> 
>> Michael wrote:
>>> Have the option/setting for "If I click on one of my bookmarks, open
>>> the link in a new window"
>> 
>> Browsers have this built in. Usually you can just ctrl-click or
>> shift-click or something. 
>> 
> True, but not most users do not find this a desirable method. It's
> much easier to just click a bookmark then to press a button AND click.


So you think.

> Yes, it seems minor but it is an annoyance to have to do it ALL the

Have you done formal research on this?  I've been doing it (ctrl- or
shift- or cmd-clicking links) for years and it doesn't bother me at all.
Plenty of people I know have been doing likewise.  None of us find it to
be a huge annoyance.

> time. This is why Tab Mix Plus is such a popular extension for
> Firefox. It eliminates the need to have to do it all the time.  

It may be popular, but I can virtually guarantee that there are vastly
more FF installations that do NOT have TMP than those that do.  Is that
by choice, or by ignorance?  Who knows...but it is very ill-advised to
go changing default browser behaviors for zillions of others just
because you happen to like it.  I tend to believe that if this method of
browsing was, in fact, so preferable, that browser developers would have
made this the default behavior some time ago!

> Unfortunately for users however, TMP cannot control Delicious and it
> is in the Delicious laps to fix it in order to make users happy. 

It's very fortunate that TMP cannot control del.icio.us.


Tim
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West Corporation, Interactive TeleServices
Eschew obfuscation!

RE: [ydn-delicious] Seriously needed features.

[Larson, Timothy E.]

AFAICT, these are all implemented browser-side.  If you want these
things, use a browser that does them.  I am perfectly happy using del
with Firefox, Opera, and Camino and the features they provide.  We don't
need del to try to reimplement browser-side features with "clever
tricks" for users that don't have them; del needs to focus on what it
does best.


Tim
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West Corporation, Interactive TeleServices
Eschew obfuscation!

RE: [ydn-delicious] Smallish Feature Request

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael wrote:
> A feature request for the next del.icio.us version..
> 
> Have the option/setting for "If I click on one of my bookmarks, open
> the link in a new window" 

Browsers have this built in.  Usually you can just ctrl-click or
shift-click or something.

Tim
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Eschew obfuscation!

[ydn-delicious] bundles when adding

[Larson, Timothy E.]

I recently started using bundles to organize my tags, and love it.
However, they'd be most useful when I'm on the screen adding a new link
so I can find what I'm looking for more easily.  Why are they only
displayed in one big blob on the edit page?  I've set up my bundles such
that they represent kinds of attributes (e.g. authors), so for each link
I'd likely want one or more from each.


Thanks,
Tim

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Eschew obfuscation!

RE: [ydn-delicious] Help! Can't see bookmarks and tags in Bookmarks pane anymore

[Larson, Timothy E.]

mfeher00 wrote:
> Also, one final question - I like the idea of tags but it REALLY sucks
> that you can't use the hierarchical (nested) method of topical
> subfolders like I used to do, and tags look retarded like
> "CharlieParker" or "joesatriani".  Does anyone have any creative ways
> around these limitations?  Thanks.

Nope.  Both of these "issues" take getting used to.  Tag-based sorting
is just fundamentally a different way of doing things than using a rigid
hierarchy.  I'm a programmer and used to "smooshed" names like that, so
I don't think they look silly at all.  I prefer CamelCase for multiword
tags, but others use separator_characters instead.  Whatever floats your
boat...

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] sort-able (rate-able) del.icio.us > how is the mashup

[Larson, Timothy E.]

While sorting on various fields (in addition to reverse chrono by post
date) would be much appreciated, it is already quite easy to introduce a
"rating" by using tags.  Using "*" to "*" as ratings is mentioned
somewhere in the help section.

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Outlook on partial match tag searches?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Matt Powers wrote:
> Here's the use case: I have two related tags that I would like to use
> to manage web articles I want to remember to read outside of work 
> time: ToRead and ToRead_save, where ToRead is just something I'd like
> to read later, and ToRead_save is an article I want to keep a
> reference to for future use.  
> 
> I noticed that searching for the term "ToRead", it seems to be
> returning exact matches for the tag.  I would like to use partial
> matches to get both of my tag types in one search.  

I think you just need to improve your use of tags.

One assumes that one does not keep nonuseful things bookmarked.  One
further assumes that once one has actually read the web page, one
assigns it tags that are useful in describing it rather than
placeholders. 

That said, "ToRead" is a useful tag, because it marks potentially good
resources you need to get back to for classification.  "ToRead_save"
means nothing, except that you once said you'd get back to it later, you
actually did, and still find it useful.

If you actually find this type of system useful for your workflow,
consider simply separating "ToRead_save" into "ToRead save".  Then
searching "ToRead" brings all of them back, while searching
"ToRead+save" brings only the saved ones back.  Would you ever search
for "save" by itself?  I don't see why - the fact that it's on del at
all means it's saved.


Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Searching issue resolved by re-importing, but had to make all public AGAIN!

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Toby Elliott wrote:
> While I'm discussing rebuilds, I'm pleased to announce that the new
> url history backend is now in place and should be much faster.
> However, like the search, it's taking a while to generate all the data
> and you may see incorrect 'no history' pages for the next couple of
> days. I do expect this one to finish much faster.

Is this sort of thing announced anywhere on the site, or is being on
this list the only way to understand these otherwise-inexplicable
service outages?

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: is del.icio.us a social news service?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

John Remmers wrote:
> A personal "star" system is good for labeling your personal favorites,
> but not so good for finding what other people consider to be their
> favorites.  For favorites-sharing, you need a standardized way of
> doing it.   

If the online documentation were to mention a few of these common
desires, and mention possible workarounds ("just use one to five
asterisks to rate your bookmarks!") it would become a de facto standard.
No additional coding necessary - you just have to nudge people in the
right direction.

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: is del.icio.us a social news service?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Britta wrote:
> I have a "star" system:
> 
> http://del.icio.us/britta/%E2%98%85
> 
> When a website catches my interest to the point of obliterating
> everything else in the world while I read it, I give it a unicode-star
> tag. I bookmark lots of stuff - most of it is just interesting, and
> some of it is awesome. This helps me remember the awesome stuff.   
> 
> Some people use asterisk tags as a type of rating system:
> http://del.icio.us/tag/***, for example.

I couldn't agree more with this.  Use what's built in to the system
already.  When I was new to Del, I thought it would be great to have a
separate author field.  But you know, using a plain ol' tag like
"AuthorName" works just fine.  (I suppose one could get fancier and use
"author:AuthorName" or some other convention to distinguish between
pages by vs. pages about that person, if desired.)  I modified the
script for my post button to automatically grab the author name(s) from
the page (if supplied in the metadata) to use as a tag.


Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] subwebs and better link recommendations

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Amir Michail wrote:
> * when entering a bookmark, you supply not only tags but also "virtual
> inlinks" and "virtual outlinks"; for example, when bookmarking
> TeXmacs, you might supply LyX as a virtual inlink and several TeXmacs
> resources pages as virtual outlinks.   
[snip]

If simply having pre- and post-link title expansion text is seen as "too
complex" for users, I _know_ this will be.

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Change Date of post?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> On the front of my blog I list the most recent books I plan to read,
> am reading, and have read, using the tags ToRead, NowReading, and
> DidRead. The problem is that when I change a book from ToRead to
> NowReading or DidRead, since the date doesn't change, it doesn't show
> up in the list as the most recently read-- it still has the date it
> was added to my reading list originally... so it doesn't show up
> unless I delete and re-add it.  
> 
> So while there are workarounds, and I appreciate them, being able to
> change the date of the post would be extremely helpful. 

But you (speaking of the abstract "you") don't want to lose the date of
original posting, either.  What you want is a creation date and a
modified date...and a way to sort by date modified rather than date
created.



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RE: [ydn-delicious] Change Date of post?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> I'd like a way to change the date of a post (or reset it to "today" if
> nothing else)-- in feeds I use for classes I like to highlight some
> basic resources early on-- but they get obscured by all the later
> posts. Short of deleting and relinking, it would be nice to be able to
> make them "new" again...

Better would be alternative sorting methods, but that's been discussed
before...

What about tagging it with the name of the class?  Or "important"?  And
then bringing up only links with that tag?  As links cease being of
higher relevance, remove the tag from them that denotes that.

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Maintaining the del.icio.us links

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Britta wrote:
> I know I'm repeating myself, but I believe that dead-link checking is
> perfect as a third-party service. A rather small percentage of
> del.icio.us users cares about checking for dead links, so if you're a
> user who does, why not use http://peerfactor.fr/testmarks/, or make
> your own service on top of del.icio.us to do this? That way, the links
> that you want to get checked will get checked, while del.icio.us is
> left free to work on more interesting and useful features that can
> benefit everyone.   

Well, I do think denoting dead links would be a very useful feature for
everyone.  But anyway...

I guess I don't care who actually does it, as long as del supports the
marking of links as dead and distinguishes them somehow.  If I tag a
link with "system:dead" or some other special identifier, I'd really
like that to pop out at me.  I _should not_ have to go to
/MyUser/system:dead to find them.  If this much is done, a third party
can do the checking, or del could add that feature later.

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Maintaining the del.icio.us links

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
> All kinds of subtlety here. For example, what to do if the site
> happens to be down while we check it? What about respecting robots.txt
> etc?  

I don't think there's too much subtlety involved.  Obviously (to me),
robots.txt needs to be respected.  Those links will simply not be
automatically checked for validity.

Sometimes the reason a link dies is because the site _has_ "gone away".
I understand that a temporary outage creates a false positive, but I
think this kind of tool would be very useful nonetheless.  

You'd probably need tools for administration of this (so it could be
unset, or set, manually) - but it could be done through a special tag,
too.  Make a rule that tags beginning in "special:" (or whatever) are
reserved for special use by the system.  Just flag the dead links with
"special:dead" and you're done.  (In this case the special use could be
addition of class="dead" to the LI tag for this entry.  A CSS rule could
dim it or something.)  Remove this tag to restore the link.  Thus no
extra admin features are needed, just tag management.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Maintaining the del.icio.us links

[Larson, Timothy E.]

rikmaes wrote:
> An old problem, yet still without answer. It would be extremely useful
> to have the opportunity to check the links of all your del.icio.us
> bookmarks on their availability. My own experience is that older
> entries in del.icio.us deteriorate due to this phenomenon.   
> 
> Is there any solution for this obsolescence problem?

I'd very much like an automated facility like this.  Links could be
classed "dead" and denoted by CSS or something.  Obviously they
shouldn't be removed automatically, since it may be temporary.  But a
notification to the user, and a special system:dead tag or somesuch,
would prompt people that they need to look for that resource elsewhere.

If there were a additional "snippet" field for saving a small section of
relevant text that could then be used to search for other copies of the
resource, that would be very helpful.  On del, this could be used as a
preview of sorts.


Tim


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RE: [ydn-delicious] Read Meta Tags?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Cade wrote:
> Hey I just started with Del.icio.us and noticed I had some problems
> deciding on TAG names.  It would be nice to be able to start with some
> tags or maybe even if it defaulted to the META KEYSWORD tags on the
> site.   
> 
> Any thoughts?

If it's been marked by others, don't you get some common tags listed?

Anyway, you could modify the javascript to add the keywords yourself.
This is what I did to automatically add pages' authors as tags.

javascript:(function(){if(document.getElementsByName){var
authors=%22%22;var
metaArray=document.getElementsByName(%22author%22);for(var
i=0;i0) authors+=%22
%22;authors += author.replace(/
/g,%22%22);}}location.href='http://del.icio.us/YOURNAME?v=3&url='+encode
URIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)
+'&tags='+encodeURIComponent(authors)})()


Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] Directory Listing

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Red Robin wrote:
> When I go into my bookmarks page at del.icio.us, I see the name of the
> site on one line fpllpwed by the tags I used to store it.  Is there
> anyway another line can be added to show the URL?  

Maybe hover over the link.  There are also browsers that can show a list
of all links in the current page in another pane.  I'd rather keep the
listing relatively compact.

OTOH, since the info is retreived anyway, the only additional overhead
is some bandwidth.  It could be done as a user preference, if it were
off by default.


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RE: [ydn-delicious] How to get information on expired links?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

rikmaes wrote:
> Is there any way to check the links in delicious on their actual
> existence? 

I'd love it if links were automatically crawled somehow, with expired
links flagged with a CSS class like "expired" or "dead" so that they
displayed differently.  If they reappear later the flag could be
removed.


Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] Re: Feature request/suggestion: UNC as well as URLs = knowledge mngmnt systm

[Larson, Timothy E.]

NM Public wrote:
> A possible solution to this problem, which I agree is a problem,
> is to put a mini icon next to links that often launch external
> apps, e.g., on my sites, I use:
> 
> 
>   protocol or mimetype   icon
>      
>   mailto:    envelope
>   nntp: or news: 2 envelopes
>   feed:  .))  [from feedicons.com]
>   imap:  (haven't decided yet?!)

This would be very easily done via CSS.  I currently have a user CSS
rule to append the \002709 character (an envelope) to all mailto: URLs.
There are browser plugins that do the same sort of thing.

Tim
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RE: [ydn-delicious] problem renaming tags

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Mislav wrote:
> The tag rename functionality had bugs in the past (specifically
> something to do with indexing afterwards). The feature was fixed
> recently and now it should work without problems. Your problems,
> however, look like they may have been caused earlier (before bugs were
> fixed) without you noticing it until now.    
> 
> So, if you need 2 tries to rename your old items then do it 2 times.
> But if it happens with new bookmarks (that includes bookmarks that are
> recently edited, like your 'browser' and 'font' ones in the example)
> you should reply to this topic or a recent topic titled "bug with tag
> replace".    
> 
> Sometimes I have the same issue as you with my old items that I've
> tried to rename back when tag rename was broken. Now that it is fixed,
> after each one is bumped (in one way or the other) there are no more
> problems.   

So the old bug persists with bookmarks that were created before the fix
went in...is that an accurate way to state it?

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[ydn-delicious] problem renaming tags

[Larson, Timothy E.]

I just renamed "browsers" to "browser" and it only partially worked.  I
had 5 links tagged "browsers" according to the list.  After the rename,
I had 3 "browser" and 2 still as "browsers".  Renaming
"browsers"->"browser" again on the remaining two worked.

Then renaming "fonts" to "font" didn't take on the first try.  On the
second try it did.

Tim

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RE: [ydn-delicious] are we all subscribed to ydn-delicious now?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> and how should we go about loging into that new "fancy" yahoo thingy?
> it asks for a "yahoo id"...
> 
> i tried my delicious id/password but it doesn't like it. do i really
> need to create yet another account to edit my [EMAIL PROTECTED] options?

I gotta agree, and I think people were saying this about a month ago
when the first news came out about the Yahoo move.  I don't want to have
to register something just to sign up to a mailing list.  Just sign me
up to the mailing list - I really don't care about "centralized
subscription mgmt" etc.  A bunch of my Mac-related lists move to Google
recently, so I'm not on them anymore.

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RE: [ydn-delicious] are we all subscribed to ydn-delicious now?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael Wiik wrote:
> I would unsubscribe but want to retain [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't
> know why I started getting ydn-delicious email. What's up??? 


Last Monday (Apr 17) morning, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote...

>
Hello discuss@del.icio.us subscribers,

On Monday morning, at approximately 10AM eastern time, the discuss
mailing list will be migrated to a newly created Yahoo! group called
[EMAIL PROTECTED] The discuss@del.icio.us address will now
redirect to the new mailing listt. All of the current members have been
subscribed to this new group and should notice no change in
functionality. If you would like to take a peek at some of the options
and features, browse over to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
ydn-delicious/ .

Please reply to me off list if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks!

-max
<

If you still have questions, please direct them to Max!

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RE: [delicious-discuss] Feature Request: Open in New Window

[Larson, Timothy E.]

David wrote:
> Here's one feature I would find handy: a setting for opening links in
> a new window (or tab, depending upon your browser setting). 
> 
> I set this preference on Google all the time. That way, when I click
> on links, the new page opens in a new tab and I don't have to
> backtrack through umpteen pages to get to my bookmarks page. The same
> feature would be very convenient on del.icio.us too; I could keep my
> del.icio.us page open in one tab, visit my umpteen favorites, and just
> close tabs as I finish with them, without leaving the del.icio.us
> page.  

Virtually guaranteed that your browser already provides this
functionality for you.  Ctrl-click, ctrl-shift-click, right click, or
something.  It works universally, not limited to del.icio.us only.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> That being said, the fact that they will be hidden/optional is not an
> argument for the utility of the information in question, which is
> where this discussion should probably center. If the utility is agreed
> upon as valuable, then visibility and placement is a secondary issue. 

The hidden/optional bit is a concession to those who think that the
addition of fields will "clutter" del.icio.us or make it "too
confusing".  I think that every additional field has utility to someone
somewhere...but the majority (who don't find them useful) shouldn't be
forced to have them "in the way" and degrading their experience.

> My opinion: keywords are marginally useful, page clipping/synopsis are
> marginally useful-- both of them even less useful with an expanded
> note field.  

I don't think expanding the note field diminishes the others.  To get
maximum utility from any metadata, the fields should remain distinct.
For example, if I'm searching for some text I distinctly remember
reading somewhere (something very memorable, that I or someone else
likely would use as a clipping), I'll search the "clipping" field.  It's
less useful if it's a generic "note" field that gets repurposed for
various things - more likely I'll get unrelated stuff, and definitely
slower to search.  And even less useful yet if I want a clipping and a
note, and only one field to hold both.

> I'm not sold on Pre and post title extensions, but maybe I'm
> misunderstanding their utility... and again it seems like one could
> have both (expanded title and note/synopsis) with an expanded note
> field.   

The utility, as I see it, is being able to supply your own
(memorable/descriptive) title, that actually _displays_ as a title,
while retaining the original title also.  

For example, news articles run a main headline (which is often reused as
the page title) and a subhead which offers a bit more explanation
(that's not in the title).  For example, I'll grab a random news item
from today and make it a del.icio.us bookmark in the fashion I'd like to
see:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12367239/from/RS.1/";>San
Franciscans gather to mark anniversary: Pre-dawn ceremony held at
exact moment it struck 100 years ago

I'd add a comment like "Several survivors commemorated the event.
Historians speculate that officials of the time underreported the death
toll in order to bring people and business back to the city" and some
tags.  That's how I'd store that bookmark.  This isn't the best example,
because MSNBC uses a title that's different than the page headline, but
I think it illustrates the idea nonetheless.  The only change I'd have
to make to titles is removing the often obligatory site name
("MSNBC.com") from them.  (One ought to be able to search the URL itself
if I want to find something by source site.)

I like to work the title itself into a more (personally) meaningful one,
that also serves as a one-liner comment/exposition.  Here's another
example, with pre-title text:

Politically correct campus speech codes are http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR20060
10401590.html">Chief Among the Silliness today  

Whether this is implemented as two additional fields ("Politically
correct campus speech codes are " and " today") or one ("Politically
correct campus speech codes are %T today") really doesn't matter
overmuch, though I suspect the former would aid searchability.

I see description (etc.) fields as supplementary to a bookmark.  Useful,
but ultimately nonessential.  Ideally, there'd be an option to hide
their display (turn it off, or make it available as a tooltip) for those
that want just a minimal display of what's important - the bookmarks
(hyperlinked titles).  The title and URL are the fundamental bits.
(Tags, of course, are what makes del.icio.us's world go 'round, but they
needn't be displayed in the bookmark listing itself.)  My description
and/or snippet may be 255/511/more characters, and while often useful,
sometimes I'd like the abbreviated (but still meaningful) version.  So,
I try to write the pre-/post-title text as if it _were_ the
headline/title, as if _I_ were the editor, because sometimes what they
come up with is just too terse or obscure to mean much (to me).  The
description and/or snippet may become unwieldy in a longish listing of
bookmarks, but a title-only listing (with pre/post) is manageable and
still more useful (IMO) than either the original title or personal title
alone.  A relatively small field size (127 or even 63) characters for
each would enforce this ideal.  

Even when description/comment/snippet is displayed, the title is more
prominent and is what will grab my attention - only then do I look to
the description for more detail.

Some would say "then just edit the title field".  The thing is, I don't
want to throw out the original because it may be that the original title
is what I happen to remember for a search.  The pre/post idea tries to
have the best of 

RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> On 4/17/06, Larson, Timothy E. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> If they are hidden unless you choose to see them, how are they going
>> to stifle anything?
> 
> They aren't-- I was referring to default and required fields. When you
> get past that, then you are in the domain of trying to decide what
> del.icio.us is for and how the proposed additions benefit its
> mission-- if it's data that only 20% of users will ever bother with,
> is it worth worrying about?   

Right...and that's the question that Ericka and Lindsay were getting at
last week.  :)  Obviously these fields would benefit _some_ users,
otherwise people wouldn't be asking for them.  

Essentially the question is, is the benefit to del/yahoo enough to
bother implementing them?  Which leads to the next question, what
exactly is the benefit to Yahoo of owning del?  If even a small segment
(~5%) of users voluntarily began supplying del/yahoo with tons of extra
(quality) metadata about links, that might be significant, but it
depends on what you're looking for.  There is probably a larger segment
than that who use del simply as a centralized bookmark repository, with
no metadata (tags) at all (or very poor ones), which contributes very
little to the value of the system beyond a popularity ranking.  But
maybe a popularity rank is enough...we don't know what the measure of
del's "value" is.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> I agree that I don't want to see del go the route of having too many
> fields to fill in. Even when they are optional they have a stifling
> kind of effect.  

If they are hidden unless you choose to see them, how are they going to
stifle anything?  Most computer users stick with application defaults,
so they'll never even be aware of the optional fields.  Thus they won't
feel "stifled" or scared off.  Users sophisticated enough to dig into
preferences will understand that optional does mean optional.  They
won't be "stifled" or scared off by them either.

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RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
> The main problems with "more fields" is that a) it scares the bejeezus
> out of most users, as empty fields are things that MUST be filled to
> continue, or they are stressed, and b) we need to continue to work on
> the database for storing this kind of stuff (which will happen in the 
> future.)
> 
> The main point of delicious is not to "get people to classify things"
> -- I think there would be much better ways to build something around
> that goal.  

All of which is exactly why I said the "complexity" doesn't have to be
exposed to most users.  Let there be a flag in the prefs for "advanced
interface" or something.  Users will not be concerned that there are 20
empty fields if they only ever see the 4 they are using.  (Out of sight,
out of mind; ignorance is bliss; etc.)  I don't think a goal should be
"getting" people to classify when they don't want to, but "letting"
people classify if they do want to.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Lindsay Donaghe wrote:
> I agree, there are things that I'd like to see in del.icio.us that
> will probably never happen.  I think I remember your discussion
> before, Timothy about additional fields.  Personally, I prefer the way
> that Furl handles it where you have a field for comments, a field for
> "clips" (excerpts from the page), a field for keywords, as well as the
> title, and topics (their version of tags). 
> 
> Of course not all of their users actually use those fields, in fact,
> probably the small minority do consistently.  But those people that
> take the time and effort to document things more thoroughly are
> contributing to the real value of the service.  The more information
> the better.

I tend to agree.  Especially in light of what you say later.  We're
getting this service "free" but we are providing value to Yahoo - at
least, Yahoo seems to think so.  :)  The more fields to classify data,
the more ways to access and use the data, the better, IMO - better for
us, and better for Yahoo.  You're right - if I had a field specifically
for clips, I wouldn't have to repurpose the description/comment field,
which would make searching easier later on.

Some of this may come at the expense of simplicity (an important feature
in itself) but not necessarily.  Not all of this has to be exposed to
users right away.



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RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Lindsay Donaghe wrote:
> Well, people do use del.icio.us in different ways.  Maybe a lot (or

Agreed, they do indeed.

> even  most) people don't write long comments or comments at all, but
> others do.  I think the people who do use the comments feature
> contribute a good bit to the del.icio.us community and should be
> encouraged.  Many times I've depended on the comments to help me
> decide whether a link was worth clicking on. 

I think pre- and post-title "extensions" (as I described several weeks
ago) would add a lot to the individual users and the community as a
whole, too.  This has been my way of incorporating the title into a
description (which is the most beneficial way to do it, for me) in my
bookmark pages in the past, so I could use the desc/comment field for a
page snippet. 

> It would be a very simple modification to add the maxlength attribute
> to the description and then would not cause the frustration of having
> your text truncated.  You'd know immediately where the limit was. 
> It's just a usability issue.   
> 
> I know there has to be a limit, depending on what kind of database
> you're using, the char types are typically limited at 256 characters,
> I think, so making it bigger would require changing the type which is
> a major enhancement, I know.  But if that can't easily happen, keeping
> me from losing data at the start would still be nice.

My intention was not to disparage your primary idea - I think it is a
good one.  I was just offering a slightly different implementation idea,
which depends on the goal trying to be achieved.  The maxlength is great
for those entering in a web interface, and the truncation-with-ellipsis
is probably better for automatic imports.  

For what _I_ often use the description for (quoted snippets from the
page) I'd prefer truncation-with-ellipsis even when manually entering,
because it'd be faster, as I'm not going to reword it to fit.  But I'm
willing to accept that I'd probably be the minority here, and the
usability gains overall would be larger, and the extra effort for me
really isn't that much.

But the trend I've seen with del.icio.us is that even useful,
easy-implementable features will probably go unimplemented if they're
perceived as beneficial only to a small minority.  That's not
necessarily good, or bad, but just the way it is.  *shrug*  Most people
probably won't make use of longer descriptions, just like most people
probably wouldn't make use of pre-title and post-title fields.  As a
developer myself, I completely understand it - it's just not fun being
in the minority section.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] notes maximum length?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Lindsay Donaghe wrote:
> Could you please have the max length set on text box that you can type
> the description in so that you don't type a whole paragraph and then
> find it truncated when you look at your saved link?  I end up with
> that happening all the time and it would be really easy to prevent
> from del.icio.us  's side just by setting the
> maxlength attribute on the text area.  And then people wouldn't have
> to wonder what the max length is.  
> 
> I just hate losing data and having things cut off in mid-sentence or
> even mid-word. 

When I was planning my own bookmark manager (before I discovered
del.icio.us) I also realized the need to truncate notes at some point.
I'd also decided on 255, but was going to have the engine be smart
enough to back up to the preceding whitespace and add ellipsis there to
indicate the truncation.  But then, I'd already decided I was perfectly
fine with silent truncation.

> Even better (but probably less likely) it would be nice if we could
> have more than 255 characters to work with.  About double that would
> be a lot more useful for me.  

Gotta cut it somewhere.  255 chars is roughly 40 words (in English).  I
think in a majority of cases that's sufficient for a
reminder/summary/snippet.  Most of my links don't have descriptions, and
those that do are not very verbose.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] Bugs, Features and a users experience :)

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
> W.B. McNamara wrote:
>>> It does if you click on the + sign itself rather than the term. I do
>>> this all the time myself. 
>>> 
>> That's a good usability point.  Half the time I do this, too,
>> basically seeing the "+ foo" as a single unit rather than a "+" and a
>> "foo", no matter how many times I make the mistake.
> 
> I do think it needs a larger target than just the "+".  Since these
> are the related tags, and the full tag list is just below, my thought
> would also be that these links would lead to currentTag+relatedTag.  I
> understand that some people would want to see _only_ the related tag,
> though.

Or alternatively, mark the related tags in the "tags" listing with a
class (in the HTML), like the "cur"rent tag is now.  Apply a style so
they stand out.  (Suggestion: prefix with the "~" character to denote
similarity/relatedness.)  Then everything in the "related tags" listing
can be links to currentTag+relatedTag - so you retain the current
functionality, reduce redundancy, and eliminate the problem of the small
target.  I think it would be readily apparent that the specially marked
"tags" are same as the "related tags".


Tim

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RE: [delicious-discuss] How to Create Multi-word Tags?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Daniel Sandbecker wrote:
> It would make some sense for del.icio.us to have a recommended best
> practice on this. See
> http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january06/guy/01guy.html (D-Lib Magazine).  


That's not a bad idea - the uniformity would definitely make the
aggregated use of tags easier - but it would probably only take hold for
those that haven't already thought through the issue on their own.  The
more technical audience probably has their own predisposition for how
multiple word identifiers "should be done".  I'm a Java programmer
sometimes, and tend to follow javaCaseConventions as a result.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] Tagging Tags?

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
> i dunno. i think it makes everything very complicated. how would the
> relevance affect anything other than notation? 
> 
> maybe there needs to be a to distinguish "this is a url i wanted to
> save" vs "this is a GREAT url i wanted to save" 

How 'bout a GM script that automatically fetches/displays Google
PageRank ... or something ...

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] Bugs, Features and a users experience :)

[Larson, Timothy E.]

W.B. McNamara wrote:
>> It does if you click on the + sign itself rather than the term. I do
>> this all the time myself. 
>> 
> That's a good usability point.  Half the time I do this, too,
> basically seeing the "+ foo" as a single unit rather than a "+" and a
> "foo", no matter how many times I make the mistake.  

I do think it needs a larger target than just the "+".  Since these are
the related tags, and the full tag list is just below, my thought would
also be that these links would lead to currentTag+relatedTag.  I
understand that some people would want to see _only_ the related tag,
though.  

> It's pretty simple, but would it help to wrap the plus sign, and/or
> slightly increase the space between it and the associated tag?  E.g.: 
> 
> [+] foo
> [+] bar
> 
> [+]  foo
> [+]  bar
> 
> I think that would help make them into distinct entities for me, any
> other thoughts? 

Putting a no-break space in the link on both sides of the "+" would make
it a bigger target, without making it seem cluttered.

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RE: [delicious-discuss] One question about related tags

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Mislav wrote:
> In addition, a hypen character can't be an operator ("yahoo-software")
> because tons of people are using it for phrases ("e-book programming
> to-read").  

That's not the end of the world.  You'd have to convert them all to
underscores, or camelCased, or something, and email the users of the
change "to improve the functionality and user experience of
del.icio.us".  

> Personally, my most wanted boolean operator for del.icio.us is tag
> union. It would open a load of possibilities. 

The greater variety of set operations, the better.  Delicious can only
benefit from it, IMO.

Tim

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RE: [delicious-discuss] dead horses and shared accounts

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Michael Stillwell wrote:
> On 24/02/06, Joshua Schachter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>  We're working privacy and groups right now -- finally getting ahead
>> of the growth curve in terms of hardware so we have someplace to redo
>> schemas and all that.
> 
> Excellent!  Will this make it possible for e.g. the nytimes to have a
> "nytimes" del.icio.us user, under which they would tag all their
> articles, which I could then "trust"?  I would very much like to be
> able to do searches like "site:nytimes.com author:natalieangier".   

As you know, I'd love to be able to search by site and author, as well.
:)


Tim


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RE: [delicious-discuss] Re: Feature Request: Search doesn't includeoption to edit

[Larson, Timothy E.]

joshua wrote:
> There's absolutely zero chance of that one. Any other ideas? We have
> to migrate off the hardware that is running the list in the next few
> weeks, unfortunately.  

What are people's objections to a Yahoo list?  I can think of two:

1.  Advertising spam appended to messages.
2.  Having to sign up for a Yahoo account to subscribe to the list.

I'd hope that it would be possible to work with Yahoo to get around the
first point.  It's not like you're just another list/group hosted by
Yahoo - stuff discussed here is going to improve a Yahoo service.  Such
lists ought to get a bit of preferential treatment, IMO.

Regarding the second, I don't know how to resolve it.  I hate having to
"create an account" (anywhere, not just with Yahoo) just to join a list,
when all that's needed is my email address.  I don't like the idea of
anyone aggregating all my info together (they can do it anyway, but I'm
not going to cooperate), and I know many people agree with me.

Are there other objections?  Are there real suggestions for
circumventing them, or making them more palatable?


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RE: [delicious-discuss] Re: Feature Request: Search doesn't includeoption to edit

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Amit Upadhyay wrote:
> Groups? Google Groups is also there! and does not have the spam
> everyone is talking about. But yes NIH, so its out of question I
> guess.  

Google Groups is a portal to Usenet, as I understand it - not at all the
same thing as a mailing list, though newsgroups and mailing lists
perform similar roles.


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RE: [delicious-discuss] Feature Request: Search doesn't includeoption to edit

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Mislav wrote:
> Oh, please don't migrate this to a yahoo group! I'm a member of
> several and I simply can't stand all the advertising appended to each
> e-mail... in large discussions with quoting it creates noise bigger
> than the discussion itself :(   
> 
> Surely there is a solution to maintaining a clearer discussion
group...

Yeah, there needs to be a heuristic that limits the lines of advertising
<= the lines of message content.  :)  I've seen some lists that are like
that too - just sick with ads.


Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> but it seems much better handled by search (efficient) than paging
> through a list of links to get to the middle of the alphabet! 

_If_ you happen to be one of those people that intuitively uses
searches.  Not everyone is.  Some people see a list, that's supposed to
contain what they're looking for, and will begin to scan it.

Another issue here has been addressed by others - the previous/next UI
for "paging" is inadequate.  The system knows what page you're on, you
should be able to directly jump to page 10 of 20 (for example) to get to
the middle of a list.

> Another thought: perhaps it also has to do with bookmark volume?
> Sorting also implies a desire/ability to scan the entire corpus for
> what one is seeking, since alphabetical sort by title (unlike, say, by
> domain name or tag) provides no other useful contextual data. That
> only works for pretty small data sets.   

Just because it works best for sets of < 20 or so is a reason not to
provide the ability?

There are always going to be people visiting del.icio.us for the first
time.  They're going to be used to "the other way of doing it".  Why not
provide them mechanisms they are familiar with?  Do they _harm_
delicious somehow?  If not, what is the resistance to something so
simple?

Reverse chrono is a completely non-useful organization in the general
application.  (OK, I can think of one specific application in which it
makes sense:  a "what's new" view.  But then I probably only care about
the 10 most recent, or the past day or week of entries, not the entire
list.)  Alpha has at least a marginal usefulness.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Chris Lott wrote:
> I'm not into autotagging either, but the function of seeing all links
> I have from a domain could be interesting. Where in the UI it would
> belong, or if it could just be a search function or maybe a
> greasemonkey extension... I don't know.   

If I have dozens or hundreds of bookmarks in a tag and I'm looking for
one I vaguely recall, that I happen to remember I found on xyz.com, it
would be nice to narrow to the intersection of tag and domain.  

All domain autotagging is, at a fundamental level, is a way to make this
possible.  It doesn't have to be implemented as a literal tag!  You've
already got the domain (in the URL), it should be possible to take the
intersection of some tag(s) with that domain.  That's all.

It would be interesting to see which domains of my collection (as well
as across del.icio.us in general) are bookmarked most heavily.  But that
would be a by-product in my opinion, not the primary use.

Tim
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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

John Sullivan wrote:
> I really don't want every page I tag that happens to be hosted on a
> university's server to be tagged with the name of the university even
> though it has nothing to do with the university. Neither do I want
> every geocities page or blogger page to be tagged with "geocities" or
> "blogger". This would add more noise to my tags. It would make it
> harder for me to find, for example, articles that are _about_
> geocities or blogger, where I wanted to use those tags as indicative
> of the subject matter. It also waters down the effectiveness of small
> features like tag completion.

I've always imagined, and thought I'd stated (but regretably not in the
original post), that this feature would be at the users' OPTION.  If I
hadn't made that clear, I apologize.  My bad.

If you don't want domain tag spam, you won't get it.  Those that would
find it useful could have it without it bothering you at all.  I see it
as a system: type tag that wouldn't exist in your regular tag space at
all - no noise whatsoever.

> I already choose to tag with the domain name when I feel it's useful.
> 
> Surely at least part of the point of tagging is the fact that everyone
> can have a schema that works well for them. The job of the system
> should be to get out of the way, to enable that creativity. Over and
> over again we see people writing to the list with the schema that they
> personally use, and wanting to make it the system default.

Absolutely not.  But when a feature can benefit a large segment of the
userbase without impacting anybody else, why not add the capability?
Autotagging is one idea that could enhance the productivity/usefulness
of del.icio.us for those that CHOOSE to use it.

> del.icio.us's policy does not rely on thinking they know "better than
> me what I want". Instead, it facilitates my ability to do what I want.
> You are asking them to implement something that would actually shrink
> the sphere of creativity in order to fit with an approach that works
> for you.

Absolutely not.  Del.icio.us could facilitate my ability to do what I
want (tag every entry with its domain) too, without bothering those
(like yourself) who prefer otherwise.  This is not a shrinking of the
creative sphere, it is an expansion of it.

This is what I thought was great about the five suggestions I posted.
Either the impact of the enhancement was completely optional, or
completely transparent to those that chose not to make use of them.  All
five could be added today and you could keep using del.icio.us exactly
as you did yesterday.  BUT if sorting differently would help you, you
could do that; if autotagging author/domain would be helpful, it would
be there; if you wanted to incorporate the title in a "comment", you'd
be able to.


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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
> I mentioned the  tag.  Not widely used, but it's
> there, at least for HTML.  If a service like Delicious started to make
> use of it, it could drive more people to use it correctly.  All the
> people who have been thoughtfully including such metadata for years in
> hopes of the semantic web would be vindicated when it finally becomes
> useful. 

Author autotagging for Firefox 1.5, using the META tag above:

javascript:(function(){if(document.getElementsByName){var authors="";var
metaArray=document.getElementsByName("author");for(var
i=0;i0) authors+=" ";authors +=
author.replace(/
/g,"");}}location.href='http://del.icio.us/ChristTrekker?v=3&url='+encod
eURIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title
)+'&tags='+encodeURIComponent(authors)})()

Delicious even recognizes the "tags" parameter and drops the values
right into place.

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RE: [delicious-discuss] Re: feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

James Miskiewicz wrote:
> I think Tim may have inadvertently stepped into a previous discussion;

I skimmed a couple months of archives before I jumped in but didn't
notice anything.  My apologies if I'm trodding all over a core Delicious
philosophy here.

> it's been said in the past that Joshua does not like autotagging
> ANYTHING because he feels that influences the tag distribution in bad
> ways (for example, letting publishers specify tags for a post in a
> "bookmark on del.icio.us!" link on their website.)  I generally agree.

Eh, possibly.  I contend there are bits of publisher-supplied data that
many users will routinely find useful.  I'm not suggesting you let
publishers dictate the tags you use (the fact that most search engines
ignore keywords is sufficient proof it would be a bad idea) - but it can
be a cooperative effort.  Take the most useful of what the publisher
provides, and retain the freedom to add your own.

> However there are system generated "tag-like things" (I don't want to
> call them tags) - see http://del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mp3 for
> example.  I would appreciate a similar system:site:cnn.com autotag.  I
> do not want it cluttering up my tag lists/bundles, however (which is
> possibly what Joshua meant below about "if I added the  stuff
> ... 
> to your account, you'd find it vastly annoying.")

I completely agree.  I wasn't aware of the system:filetype thing.  I
tried to explain that I saw autotags (for domains at least) being in a
different "space" than normal tags, though still acting much the same.

>> Tim Larson wrote:
>> I find myself wondering, were you a librarian, if you would dump the
>> title and author cards from the catalog.
>> You'd still have subject (tag) cards.  No offense intended
>> - that's just what it sounds like to me.
> 
> But a librarian is organizing for other people; your delicious

To an extent, I am too.  I refer people to my Delicious bookmarks.
Obviously I want the system to be useful to me specifically, but I still
want it to be useful in the general case.  Alpha sorting and author
autotagging are two things that I believe would be useful in both ways.

> bookmarks are organized by you for you.  The aggregate effect of
> everyone's bookmarks is interesting, but I believe it's a side effect.
> Granted many people use it as delicious' primary (or very important
> secondary) function, but that is up to the user; delicious doesn't
> make many assumptions at all about the pages you tag.  I think Joshua
> is arguing against filling your card catalog with stuff he thinks is
> useful, preferring to let you organize it however you want.  And some
> people do tag sites (see http://del.icio.us/tag/cnn) as they think it
> is useful. 

I can understand his point of view.  Sure, I can tag the author or the
domain manually.  But if it is, as I believe, something that many people
would see as a useful tag, and could be done automatically, why not
provide that capability for those who want it?  You don't have to assume
much about a page to guess it will have a creator and a location.

>> Tim Larson wrote:
>> Some bits of author/publisher-supplied meta-information _are_ going
to
>> be useful to the reader.
> 
> Yes, but it also invites abuse... I don't think that
> system:site:cnn.com can be abused, but publisher supplied tags could. 

Yes...that goes back to why META keywords failed.  But like I said, a
few metadata fields are universal, and quite useful.

>> Tim Larson wrote:
>> These don't have to be forced on users - if they don't want
>> autodiscovery/autotagging of those things, they don't have to use it.
> 
> This invites complexity in the interface, which delicious also avoids.
> While I appreciate as many options in my programs/websites as
> possible, I know many people do not or are confused by them, so I can
> appreciate the desire to keep it simple.  

So you hide the complex bits, just like any well-designed UI.  Windows
and MacOS don't plop every single sysconfig tool right on the desktop -
you have to take steps to access them.  If you don't bother, you can
still use the basic interface.  But if you want to customize things, you
can.

> Thanks for the great system Joshua, and for the discussion everyone!

I have to second that.  I've already heard several good ideas mentioned
that never crossed my mind.  

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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Vinay Augustine wrote:
> I'm not sure how useful metadata is. I mean, metadata that's important
> to you (like the webpage URL) isn't important to me at all. 
> 
> How does Joshua decide which pieces of metadata to include?

Certain metadata are nearly universal of any resource you'd look up.
Just for starters: it probably has a title, it obviously has a location,
it has a creator, it has a creation date, and there's the date you found
it.

> You're also asking for the "original title" to be kept, but can't
> *you* keep it? maybe the description field something like "(original
> title) // (my title)"

But then it's not the title.  It doesn't look or act like a title.
Having pre- and post-title fields for title extension/commentary allows
this to be displayed in the title line where it looks and feels like a
title, while still retaining the original title.

I'm willing to concede I'm probably in the minority on the title thing,
but I discovered it to be a much more convenient way for me to store my
bookmarks.  It works the way I think.  Most people are probably happy
with a simple comment field.  I prefer working the title into my
comment, if you will, and using a direct quote where others would put
their comment.  Very small addition, much greater utility for those that
choose to use it, no headache for those that choose not to.

> It's tempting to add metadata for things that one person finds useful,
> but a lot of people find a large number of things useful; I think
> del.icio.us is excellent in this regard because it presents a fairly
> minimal interface that one extend in ways that are personally
> meaningful.

How can a user extend it?  I can't add custom fields to the database to
store extra bits of info.  As mentioned above, overloading one field
with multiple types of data isn't an optimal solution.

> Given that you've given your coworker the title, I imagine that he'd
> just search for it. 

Most people use search as a last resort when there's comprehensible
navigation.  If a user sees a list of links that ought to contain what
he's looking for, he's going to start scanning it.  Alpha order aids in
that.

 I don't agree.  If there are aspects of the page that I'm going to
 use as tags anyway, why not give the option to have it done
 automatically? Autotag it! 
 
> 
> There's been discussion on this list about autotagging, and I was
> under the impression that it was fairly taboo -- besides (referencing
> above), what tags should be automatically added? you mention URL
> (which would be easy enough, though I don't see the use -- you can
> even just type "cnn" or "sourceforge" as a tag; I imagine the

I know I can enter it myself - my point is that it's already known (in
the URL) and it would save time if I could tell the system to
automatically extract it consistently, so it's not always up to me to
remember to do it.  It's something I'd always want, but might forget to
do.  Same idea with the author - I'd love for all my links to be
searchable by author, especially if that (potentially) were done
automatically.

> tag-recommendation system would help you out there after a while) and
> author. With the latter, how do you extract the author? There's no
> simple, universally used author metadata; what do you do if it's not
> there?

I mentioned the  tag.  Not widely used, but it's
there, at least for HTML.  If a service like Delicious started to make
use of it, it could drive more people to use it correctly.  All the
people who have been thoughtfully including such metadata for years in
hopes of the semantic web would be vindicated when it finally becomes
useful.

> Yes, but what about all the *other* meta data he would add at people's
> requests? I don't disagree that metadata is useful, but it doesn't
> seem overly onerous to tag those pieces of metadata that you find
> useful, especially given that it might change from URL to URL.   

Of course people are going to have different opinions.  But I think
there can be a sensible middle ground.  Currently, Delicious provides
the bare minimum for a bookmarking system, plus a comment field.  I
think it could do much more with little effort, and be a better utility
for so doing.

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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

ivan santiesteban wrote:
> This has been interesting. I like Timothy's push for more automatic
> tags. We already have system:filetype:, so it's not something entirely
> new.  
> 
> As microformats grow these things could work really well for specific
> uses. 
> 
> I think the only things you have to decide are a) wether you want your
> system to pull this information automatically, to ask the user to
> include a special system tag, or to do something in between; and b)
> how to make this tags visible.

As for actual implementation of autotags, I'm not positive it's actually
possible.  I haven't gotten to researching if javascript can be written
that will grab the correct elements, assuming they exist.  I assume it
would be, though, with modern browsers.

If a user decides he wants to use autotagging, he'd have to
recreate/edit his bookmarklets to have a form that grabbed the extra
stuff.  Or I suppose the bookmarklet could be standard, but the extra
data gets dumped on submission if the user's prefs say he doesn't want
it.  Domain autotagging would be done on the server, since that info is
already passed in the URL.

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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
> Perhaps I we should just let people star items? It'd certainly be a
> simpler UI... I've always been against it, though; why bookmark a bad
> item? I dunno.  

Not good-vs-bad, but good-vs-great.  

Or a 1-2-3 rating, where 1 is your standard "good enough to bookmark", 2
is "if you're interested in this topic, definitely take a look at this",
and 3 would be "OMG why hasn't everyone already bookmarked this one!?!?"

I don't think I'd rate my bookmarks (I'd let popularity serve as a
rating) but some people might.

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RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
>> But then the original title is not preserved.  Just because the
reader
>> thinks he can improve the title does not mean the author's title for
>> the page is not important as well.
>> 
> The point is so that you can get back to the original document. The
> titles are very frequently unhelpful on many sites. 
> 
> The creator owns the site, but the reader owns the bookmark. Please
> explain "important" in that context. 

I frequently bookmark op-eds.  If someone mentions, for example, Mr.
Foo's article from a few months back, I may recall that I often
bookmarked his stuff and look it up easily (was it the one titled "XYZ"
or "PDQ"?) - if I've retained the original title.  However, my
user-expanded title serves as a personal opinion/summary of the link, so
that I remind myself what it was about without having to click through
it.  Like I mentioned, I use the note field for quotes/excerpts - if my
expanded title still doesn't jog my memory or tell me if its what I was
looking for, this often will.  

The original title is important metadata.  My personal title is useful
to me, but the "real" title is still important in broader context.  For
example, my mental association for Newt Gingrich may be "Chubby
Politician" but I can't expect anyone else to know what I'm talking
about if I say that - I have to use the real name.  Having both is
important and useful.  To use this analogy, my bookmark for him would be
"Newt 'Chubby Politician' Gingrich" - I preserve his real name, but add
my own extension. 

I want my bookmark list to remind me of pertinent details about the page
without having to actually go to the page.  Title, author, personal
classifications (tags), personal summary (expanded title), site - these
are all things I find useful to know at a glance.  I tend to think
they'd be useful to others, too.

>> A search is a filter.  I don't always want to filter.  I just prefer
>> an alternate presentation of the same information.  When scanning a
>> list, alphabetical order is a more "natural" style for many people.
>> Maybe it's just conditioning because so many lists are alpha sorted,
>> but if it works for people, why not have it?  Since it keeps coming
>> up, maybe it is a hint that many people would find it useful even if
>> you personally do not.
>> 
> Again, I'm not sure that "other things work like this" is a good
> explanation - what is the mechanism and use case in which alpha order
> helps?  

If you don't understand that some people simply prefer to scan document
listings in alpha order, that it works better for their comprehension
and ease of use, there's not much I can do to help you.

Perhaps I should ask why the list is currently sorted in reverse chrono
order?  Were there usability studies performed to determine this was the
best?  How does it help?

What's wrong with giving users very simple configuration ability?

OK, here's a use case for you.  I'm helping a coworker with regular
expressions in PHP.  I'm about to head to lunch and say, "I marked a
good article called ''RegExp, PHP, and You'' awhile ago - go to my
delicious PHP section and read it," as I walk out the door.  I'm the PHP
guru, don't you know, and have hundreds of PHP bookmarks.  How does my
coworker find it?  It would be helpful if he could intersect with my
regularexpression tag, but alas, I've never created one.  An alpha
listing would be very helpful.

>> I don't agree.  If there are aspects of the page that I'm going to
use
>> as tags anyway, why not give the option to have it done
automatically?
>> Autotag it!
>> 
> This is wrong-headed. The domain is metadata. Tags are metadata +
> attention; people tag so as to identify the things they feel are
> important, not what the publisher feels is important.  

And in those cases when the reader agrees with the publisher about what
is important?  Some things are inherently of some importance: the domain
serves as an identifier than many would use to limit scope as we often
think of pages being associated to a site and not merely "out there";
the author's name is something I think would be an obvious choice for
tagging, especially for someone who bookmarks op-eds as I do; the
author's choice of keywords serves (in the ideal case) just as good a
starting point for suggesting tags as other delicious users' tags for
the link.

> I'm fairly sure if I added the  stuff or the domains or whatever
> to your account, you'd find it vastly annoying. 

You seem to think you know better than me what I want.  Maybe you don't
want a feature like this, and maybe you think most people don't, either.
And maybe you're right about that!  But as for me, including the domain
and the author names automatically would save a bunch of time in the
long run, because those are important metadata that I would use to
organize my bookmarks.  If I didn't think this would be a useful
feature, I wouldn't mention it.

I find myself wondering, were you a librarian, if you would dump the
ti

RE: [delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Joshua Schachter wrote:
>> 1. Title extension.  In my own link collection, I like to expand upon
>> the title a bit as a memory-jogger for myself, perhaps incorporating
>> 
>> 
> This is why the title is editable.

But then the original title is not preserved.  Just because the reader
thinks he can improve the title does not mean the author's title for the
page is not important as well.

>> 2. Sorting.  Having the display sortable only reverse chronologically
>> by date added is horrible.  There should be options for alpha by
title
>> and popularity (num users linking to page), at least.  
>> 
> Does alpha ordering provide anything that search does not? This keeps
> coming up and I'm not entirely sure it's all that sueful. 

A search is a filter.  I don't always want to filter.  I just prefer an
alternate presentation of the same information.  When scanning a list,
alphabetical order is a more "natural" style for many people.  Maybe
it's just conditioning because so many lists are alpha sorted, but if it
works for people, why not have it?  Since it keeps coming up, maybe it
is a hint that many people would find it useful even if you personally
do not.

>> 3. Display.  I like to get more on a page, preferably without
>> scrolling. 
>> How about an option to not display descriptions - rather, put them in
>> the title attribute of the link so they appear when on mouse hover?
>> 
> Interesting idea.
> 
>> 4. Domain autotagging.  I think it would be useful if the domain of
>> the story were automatically used as a tag, so a user could quickly
>> 
> If it's automatic, then it is not a tag.  

I don't agree.  If there are aspects of the page that I'm going to use
as tags anyway, why not give the option to have it done automatically?
Autotag it!

Traditional web searches rely completely on what the producer has
supplied - the content.  Bookmarks give a limited ability for the user
to have some input on his browsing experience.  Delicious greatly
enhances this ability by letting the user easily categorize and share
the bookmarks.

I think the ideal bookmarking system as a collaboration between the
content producer and content consumer.  The producer makes something
worth noticing, the consumer takes notice and bookmarks it.  There must
be something inherently interesting/noteworthy in the content, otherwise
the consumer wouldn't bookmark it.  

Why not take advantage of some of the things the producer has already
included in the content when you bookmark it?  There must be _some_
overlap between what the producer and consumer think is noteworthy about
the content, right?  That is to say, certain tags the consumer will use
are, or could be, inherent in the page.

For example, the domain.  People's minds are funny things - sometimes I
recall I read an interesting article last week on cnn.com, but darned if
I can remember what it was about.  Sure, I _could_ put "cnn.com" as a
tag, but if the system could (optionally) do this automatically for me,
why not?  It sure would be convenient to go to delicious/user/cnn.com to
quickly find the page I remembered.  This would be very useful to me.
In implementation, this autotag would have to be checked on updates to
make sure the domain didn't change (maybe the original link went 404 and
it moved to a new host) but that wouldn't be terribly hard - or maybe
handle it as a "virtual" tag based on the saved URL, which is obviously
always correct.  It might be useful to flag these as part of a different
"tag space" so that the user-chosen tag cloud/list doesn't become
overwhelmed, though - easily done if it's a virtual tag.

Another example, the author's name.  I bookmark articles and commentary,
and could put "CalThomas" or "DanKnight" as a tag for their pages.  But
if the page already knew this information (and it usually does, just not
often in a standardized way), it would be awfully slick if that tag was
done for me since I'm going to use it anyway.  Many pages have a  tag generally used for email addresses.  It seems to have
a partner in  that is perfect, currently in limited
use.  As popular as delicious is becoming, it could drive the usage of
this meta tag to increase as it would finally do something useful.

Another example, the author-supplied keywords from the meta tag.  Maybe
a good starting point for the consumer's own tags is the producer's
"tags".  I probably wouldn't use this myself, but some people might find
this useful in addition to the current "recommended" tags.

> You can search for domains,
> though. 

How do I search for a domain?  I tried putting a domain I've bookmarked
from (like "cnn.com") in the search box, but didn't come up with
anything.  This isn't nearly as nice an interface as just clicking tag
names.  Simplicity is why I use delicious.  If I wanted to search, I'd
go to Google.

>> 5. Favicons.  If domain autotagging is done, it wouldn't be too hard
>> to store the URL to a site's favicon, if it has one, and then display
>> 
> We don't currently 

[delicious-discuss] feature suggestion/request for discussion

[Larson, Timothy E.]

Hi list,

I was almost ready to start writing my own bookmark manager last year
when I was introduced to del.icio.us - how fortunate for me!  It
provides an easier-to-use interface than I'd envisioned, which is a
major point in its favor.

However, it lacks a few key features which I think would be really nice
to have.  If the code were open-source, I'd have added them already, as
they are small compared to the hard work that has already been done.  As
it's not, I'm throwing them out here for discussion.  I couldn't find a
TODO list posted anywhere on the site, so please forgive me if these
have already been debated to death or are slated to be added.

1. Title extension.  In my own link collection, I like to expand upon
the title a bit as a memory-jogger for myself, perhaps incorporating the
title into my one-liner commentary about the page.  Before you suggest
description, I don't use the description for this, because that's where
I like to save a short quote from the page so that in case my link goes
404, I can search for a copy elsewhere.  For example, today's CNN
headline "Postal shooter's former neighbor found dead" might appear in
my collection as "California Postal shooter's former neighbor found dead
next day in home" where only the original title is hyperlinked.

2. Sorting.  Having the display sortable only reverse chronologically by
date added is horrible.  There should be options for alpha by title and
popularity (num users linking to page), at least.  If the above idea
were adopted, the sort by title should allow by actual page title (the
link itself) as well as the user-expanded title.

3. Display.  I like to get more on a page, preferably without scrolling.
How about an option to not display descriptions - rather, put them in
the title attribute of the link so they appear when on mouse hover?

4. Domain autotagging.  I think it would be useful if the domain of the
story were automatically used as a tag, so a user could quickly pull up
all links he has from cnn.com, for instance.  You wouldn't be able to
edit these tags, of course, as they are implicit in the URL, but
otherwise should work pretty much the same.

5. Favicons.  If domain autotagging is done, it wouldn't be too hard to
store the URL to a site's favicon, if it has one, and then display the
favicon for the domain in the bookmark entry.  One of the primary uses
of favicons is bookmark lists in the browser because they help with
visual identity; they'd be useful in the same way for bookmark lists on
the web.  Naturally, this should be optional for those who feel it slows
their page loads too much.

OK, that's it.  What do you think?

Thanks,
Tim
-- 
Tim Larson
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